The two-lane country road twisted eastward, and upward, for miles. But around each bend, there were no campesinos, no burros, no dogs, no cars barreling down toward the Pacific. Fields of yellow grass, grown taller than a man, covered the landscape, animated only by the wind.

This, though, was no vision of tranquillity. This was the road to the pueblos fantasmas, the ghost pueblos.

"There used to be hundreds of heads of cattle here," Don Polo said. "But now there are no cattle to eat the grass, because the farmers can't live here anymore.

"All of this is due to organized crime."

Leopoldo "Polo" Soberanis, a 54-year-old fruit-packing impresario whom most here respectfully address as Don Polo, said he wanted the world to see what had happened in this swath of Guerrero state set between the famous beach resorts of Acapulco and Ixtapa.

Thanks to a retinue of police bodyguards provided by the Mexican government, which has declared him to be in "imminent danger," Don Polo was able to give a rare tour of the no-man's-land created by the drug war here.

It consists of more than 20 pueblos, Don Polo said, which have steadily been emptied of residents. Those who have fled tell of mistreatment by the Mexican army and of persistent threats and violence carried out by a small group of armed men, perhaps no more than 100, who claim to be members of the Knights Templar drug cartel.

The people say that masked men come down from the mountains where clandestine fields of poppies grow. Wearing paramilitary uniforms and carrying AK-47s, they demand loyalty, as well as a "tax" for the privilege of staying in one's home or running a business.

Sometimes they force residents to leave without giving them time to gather their belongings. Sometimes they burn down the houses of those who decline. Sometimes they simply kill.

A few miles up the road, the convoy of pickup trucks rolled to a stop at La Palapa, once a settlement of about 60 people, now a clutch of abandoned homes hugging the road. A quartet of burly bodyguards jumped out ahead of Don Polo, assault rifles drawn. But there was no one to aim them at.

Come and get a picture of this, Don Polo said, pointing to a green house that had belonged to his cousin. He walked past the chained door of the community store and through the open one to La Palapa's single-room school, where no one had bothered to pack up the textbooks. He sifted through heaps of them strewn on the floor. Come and take a picture, he said.

The next town, El Huamilito, was bigger, and just as empty. Don Polo stopped at an attractive lime-colored ranch house. He pointed to an iron gate with painted flowers. It was pocked with bullet holes.

"Cuerno de chivo" — "goat's horn" — he said, using the Mexican nickname for an AK-47.

Farther on, he pointed to a dusty corral. This, he said, was where they had killed his nephew, a cattleman named Jose Luis Garcia.

They came for him on the morning of July 14, 2011, while he was milking cows. He ran up the hill, Don Polo said, but they caught him, and they slit his throat.

In recent weeks, residents of other towns in Guerrero have generated headlines by forming vigilante groups in an effort to protect their communities. But in this long, sad and bloody chapter of Mexican history, it has been more common, and perhaps more sensible, to flee.

More than 1.6 million Mexicans left their homes because of drug violence from 2006 to 2011, according to the Mexico City polling firm Parametria. They might be considered lucky, if only because they are not among the 70,000 Mexicans slain in the drug war.

But the reward for survival is often financial hardship and heartbreak. Don Polo estimated that 1,500 people had fled to his hometown, San Luis de la Loma, while others had settled in a slightly larger city farther down the coast. Neither city has the jobs or the social services to support them.

"These people have lived in the countryside forever," Don Polo said. "They've lost their way of living."

Don Polo's uncle Serafin Hernandez Garcia, 63, was among them. He had come along for the tour of the ghost pueblos and he wore the evidence of the living he had lost on his feet. His dusty white cowboy boots were holdovers from his days as a cattleman, on his 500-acre ranch near the town of Los Toritos. Now, he said, he was in the city, working on a road crew, just scraping by.

He said the masked men had come to Los Toritos about two years ago and called a town meeting.

"They said, 'Help us, or we will kill you,'" Hernandez recalled. He didn't like either option. So he left.

Don Polo showed so much intellectual promise as a boy that his family decided to send him to Mexico City for schooling. He became a petrochemical engineer, living in the cosmopolitan capital andtraveling the world before moving back, two years ago, to Guerrero. He wanted to shift gears, he said, and live a slower, less stressful life.

So he reinvented himself as the owner-operator of a mango and coconut packing company. Today he seems comfortable in his role of tropical country squire, his raspy voice quick to issue a command, his ruddy face typically shielded by the floppy brim of a simple straw hat.

But he could not shield himself from the troubling stories coming out of the mountains. Members of his extended family and other refugees told him not only of cartel terrorism, but also of wanton crime by Mexican soldiers who were supposed to be keeping the peace. Some, they said, were stealing furniture and appliances from abandoned homes, or worse.

In early September, soldiers killed six young men in the still-populated town of El Tule.

Government authorities said the young men had fired on the troops. Don Polo didn't believe it. One of the dead had been in a wheelchair.

On Sept. 10, Don Polo organized a protest on the coastal road, with banners blaming the army for unjustified executions. A month later, soldiers raided his packing plant, according to a complaint he filed with the state attorney general's office. The soldiers lined up his employees, said they were waiting on an order to kill them, and searched the place for marijuana bales. They came up empty-handed, Don Polo said.

On Nov. 7, more soldiers raided his home, overturning boxes of business papers in a hunt for evidence linking him to organized crime, according to a complaint he filed with the national human rights commission. Again, he said, they found nothing.

Don Polo says he has nothing to do with the drug gangs. He interprets the raids as a warning to keep out of the army's business.

The narcos, he said, have threatened him too, since he founded the area's first human rights group a few months ago. In San Luis, he showed the bullet holes in the group's modest offices. The place had been shot up one evening while it was empty.

He assumed, from the descriptions given by neighbors, that the shooters were cartel members.

"We think they were trying to scare us away from opening this place," he said.

Such is the fog of modern Mexico: A self-appointed human rights advocate is suspected, by the army, of being a drug dealer. The army, sent into the streets to protect the people, is accused of robbing them and of killing the innocent. The federal government pays the salaries both of the soldiers and of the federal police who must be sent in to protect against the soldiers' alleged threats.

Meanwhile, the Knights Templar cartel argues — between extortion attempts and violence — that it is protecting the common folk from a corrupt federal government.

Perhaps the sole unassailable fact is that most people who once lived in the pueblos are gone.

Farther along the road, in the town of El Cuaulotal, Don Polo stopped in front of an empty orange house adorned with a hand-painted mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Inside, he pointed to a shrine that someone had left behind on a living room wall. It memorialized his nephew Luis Soberanis and the nephew's brother-in-law, Federico Fernandez. Their names were painted on a pair of wooden crosses.

They were also killed here, Don Polo said.

Today, at least, El Cuaulotal was not totally abandoned. Two men were standing in a yard, with a burro and a rifle: Gumersindo Soberanis, 68, a campesino married to Don Polo's cousin, and his friend Cosme Acosta, a weather-beaten 73-year-old rancher in a cowboy hat.

Acosta said his house was up the road, but he didn't live there anymore. He was just here to check on his land, he said. But he couldn't stay long.

He pulled a small pistol from a pouch. It wasn't safe here anymore, he said. The army treated him like he was in with the cartel. The men from the cartel had come a few months earlier, and set his house on fire.

Why?

"We don't know," he said.

The convoy motored farther into the mountains to El Banco, where it came across Acosta's charred home, high grass outside and blackened bed frames within. Don Polo pointed out the details as if he was a dejected real estate agent: Spacious kitchen. Stunning countryside view. Light fixtures like one might find in a U.S. suburb

.

"This place was almost a paradise," he said. "People had their cattle. They weren't rich, but they lived well."

In a town called Ojo de Agua, Don Polo's uncle Hernandez showed the ruins of a ranch house and told how two men he knew had been hanged from its exposed rafters.

Nearby, in La Cienega, there was a closed-up church, and little red tomatoes on the ends of unruly vines, and another burned-out house on a hill. The men were pretty sure it had belonged to the sheriff, now long gone.

They traipsed through an empty home containing unpacked luggage, laid open on unmade beds, and a home with drinking glasses lined up neatly in a cupboard, as if someone would be returning that night. Did you get a picture of that? Don Polo asked.

There was one more charred house that Don Polo was eager to show. But one of the bodyguards rushed over, a pistol in his right hand.

"Engineer," he said, sounding worried. "There's a little truck up there." He thought maybe they were being watched. "We need to hurry up."

In the yard of the smoke-scarred house was a guanabanatree, and a sweet lime tree fat with fruit. Nearby, blazing ripe oranges had fallen in piles in the grass and dirt.

I'm an artist who devotes as much spare time as possible to studying the complexities of the drug war facing Mexico and the USA. It is essential to spread the word about the plight of Mexico, so I frequently post on Borderland Beat. It's true that there are many others devoted to the cause. But more people should care because such suffering should never go unnoticed and ignored. Allowing that to happen is perhaps the biggest crime of all. Feel free to email me. Adios HavanaPura@Gmail.com

76 comments:

"we need to hurry up"Why,you got guns they got guns,let them come and kill them?Hide up and wait,kill some,they messin with you anyway,,,Mexico,big and beautiful,but untamed,a tsunami needs to wash all the shit and crusted politicians away.Their beloved Mexico?They only care about how much and and whats in it for me and my extended family,look at EPNs daughter?Her countrymen and women need help badly,,,she wants a reality program?Priorities,she got her priorities right,a little monstrosity of inflated ego.

This is waste and waste is offensive. This is a beautiful county not a cigarette butt. Why is this still going on and not revolution? Mexicans and Mexico deserve better! I've run out of answers. All that remains is digust, not even surprise. I remain thankful to the reporters at Borderland Beat for my lunch hour fix. Gracias Havana

it´s the same along the mountains between Durango and Zacatecas where CDS and zetas fighting for the territory together with draught have left many villages empty, remember what happened in Tierras Coloradas a couple of years ago when they set the whole place in fire, and although the area is not as violent now as it was then that doesn´t mean things are calm, around Valparaiso, Zacatecas, for example, things are pretty heated up

I come from germany, and I know thats far away from mexico but i think you should know that people all over the world read borderland beat. I want to say thankyou to the reporters of Borderland Beat because its so important what you do.

these ghost towns are rich in mineral resources. it isn't all narcos that are terrorizing, it's also the government. it's easier this way to get the land. look ten years ahead and see what these towns are then.

What I always wonder is if Mexico is just going through the motions trying to win a war against the cartels or if it is just a public image/just for show effort because the cartels just about run the show as much as the Mexican government. You know what I'm trying to say? What a complete insane mess. And whoever said WASTE, nailed it. WASTELANDIA!

I see no other way towns would be abandoned and controlled by cartels. Unless Mexico is not what it lets the world see-most of mexico is controlled by cartels and the rest of the world is okay with it cause most don't know it. But Most Mexicans aren't okay with it, but the rest of the world doesn't care because it doesn't affect them.

How the fuck is obama crazy for trying too tak guns why do you think these countries have so much violence access too guns if you cant survive on earth with out a gun i dont think you would have been made

Seriously? I'm speechless to your absolute ignorance. 47 Zetas with AK47's can hold a city of 1 million hostage because they are unarmed. Wake up and quit believing the drivel on msnbc. If Mexican citizens had a 2nd amendment, the cartels wouldn't exist.

The mere fact that the criminals are the only ones with guns, allows them to do as they please with no reprisal. It's fucking assholes like you demonizing guns that have no clue.

We have cocaine control in the US...coke is everywhere

We have heroin control, pot control, acid control...everywhere. You really think gun control would be different? Arms dealers abroad hope and pray for us gun control, another black market item.

Disarming the common citizen causes what's happening in Mexico. If a genie could pop out of a bottle and take away every freaking gun on the planet....I would say okay, great. But it can't and isn't realistic. All your gun control bullshit does is disarm the honest man, criminals disregard all laws anyway.

The majority of these weapons are manufactured abroad, you think they won't be smuggled here? You're a total fuvking retard. Think for yourself, Obama wants your guns because an unarmed mass is easier to crush. Mexico is a perfect example.

That idiot who said the problem is guns thats nonsense.the problem is only the criminals have them.do u really think they could roll into a town that easily and take over if the law abiding citizens met them with the same force and weapons they had? Dont think so.they do it with impunity cause they know the citizens are unarmed.plenty of criminals in the u.s lost their lives in the process of committing a crime cause they were met with armed citizens who took them out first.

Yea but hell be an unarmed sheep and one of the first to die if it came down to the shit hitting the fan.take the guns from the citizens and this kind of garbage is what happens.the criminals love an unarmed population it makes their job easier.the criminals will always get guns it has always be that way.they dont follow the law anyway.let the citizens of mx arm themselves and practice a little guerilla warfare at least they wouldnt be sitting ducks.there is a reason they dont roll thru the streets of the u.s they would get their ass shot up.dont kid yourselves we have the same weapons they do

For all u gun control nuts we have a grandmother in michigan in her 70s whose 17 yr old grandson was living with her cause his parents divorced and left the state.well he tried to jack her for money and her car and when she said no he kicked her in the stomach several times and beat her but she pumped 10 rounds into his lil ass.if she hadnt had that gun he probably would have killed her.she did what she had to do and something wrong with a kid who beats and kicks a 70 yr old woman

March 13, 2013 at 2:48 PM "these ghost towns are rich in mineral resources"Bro,you probably right there,mineral rich and they aint lettin no-one near it,till they say.Who has rights,who to lease out to,who to bring in,etc,fuck knows what these people get up to.But just once,you would think one person may say"lets create jobs to get the minerals,spread that wealth"after all Mexicans should benefit from it?Nah man,thats common sense,idealistic bullshit.

@2:29p.m. Underground resistance!!!...You nailed it my friend. I've known narcos/trafickers...have been exposed to them since I was a kid, and most (as much as people might disagree and might say other wise with out really knowing the people) were good people. They did what they needed to or what they felt they had to do, that was part of their job (it paid the bills and put food on the table). What ever they did, one of the things they really didn't do was cause willful harm to ordinary citezens. For the most part the inocent weren't bothered.But the way cartels go about their business now a days.....it's way out. All this extortion, taxing, kidnapping and killing of the ordinary folks, that's not cool, especially when it's done to the poor. Now m*@¿#%fckrs wanna charge want to tax some one for living in THEIR OWN HOME!!!!!!!....WHAT THE F*#%¿!!!!!!! Before there was honor in that game, pride, loyalty, principle (weather people want to agree or not, doesn't matter, I know what I know. Seen it, lived amongst them , and known them). They considered themselves men of honor, and so did I. This sh*t that's going on right now, there is none of that. It makes my blood boil and breaks my heart at the same time. Underground resisance sounds like a beatiful thing. I know it won't be easy and and those who join might not be around to see the fruit of their sacrifice, but if one were to crop it's head...sign me up, I'm in.

We WILL NOT give up our guns in the u.s.we will war in the streets first just watch and see if it doesnt happen if they come for the weapons.i dont advocate violence but like hell will obama get our guns

I read all this long ass Havana post. And i feel so demorakized for Mexico and all the people living with so much violence, kidnapping and corruption. The only ones who think the knights of templar are good are the knights themselves because they are thoroughly deluded.

Mexico is so, so screwed. Their continued ignorance and lies is going to kill the entire country. If the U.S. had these groups of criminals running around we would set the military on them and not stop until they were all dead! The ignorant bleeding hearts in Mexico are no better than the criminals and they do nothing but protect them! mexico is pathetic, if it was a TV show I would change the fucking channel!

What is going on with the community police? i've seen that they are in trouble with the Army. but i cant read spanish. I just hope the Government isn't successful in cracking down on them. I hate to say it but they are the only hope in Mexico.

Yall cowards on here it takes heart and guts too stab or kill with bare hands dumb ass shooting someone can ve done by a toddler white men created guns for a reaso and it was not to hunt animals and yes i am verey racist against most whites leas im honest i dont trust yall hall yall stupid ass honkeys be leavin hate comments about people in mexico did you know this site is based on events in mexico take all the guns we dont need them look at great britain and netherlands etc.no guns minimal violence people like these punk ass drug heads wouldnt be so brave scared just like yo gun carrying ass

You are not only racist but youre ignorant.what grade were you in when you dropped out of school? I cant speak for everyone but i dont complain about mexicans just the violence and the killing of innocent people thats all.by the way i am native american so if you want to talk about a race that got screwed but i cannot do anything about the past and i cant change it either.i just want to see the mexican citizens rise up and take their country back.they need to do to the cartels like the indians did to custer

I figure it's only a matter of time and getting enough narcos in place in the USA before the same things happen here. a single man with an ar15 is no match for the convoys of heavily armed drugged up teenage killers. we all know that they are organized into squad platoon and company sized elements. we on the other hand are each on our own.

this is a beautiful country and not a cigarette butt, hmm if only that same sentiment happened here in the us southwest region, fucking mismatched everything yards all fucked up, and houses painted immigration green, yeah mexico lindo but fuck this place.. anyway, maybe since there is a new world argentine pope he will start to lean on mexico to clean up its upper houses, and get the americas to start minding their human rights issues..

cocaine wasnt around in revolutionary america, they wrote it because england was trying to tax everything like your narcos, and us honkeys said fuck that, you guys need to get some posses together run down a few idiot narcos take their weapons and build your arsenals little by little if your gvt wont keep you alive, then you have to keep each other alive, work together and form like voltron

Wow! Really can this country get any more lawless and totally out of conrol without the whole world taking notice? You would think not, but this is Mexico where for some reason terrible corruption and violence is ignored and accepted as reasonable behavior. It is not acceptable. Mexicans are totally getting a raw deal from their so called leaders. Makes me sick.

All these morons writing that the problem is the ordinary Mexican citizen can't get a gun. You're wrong, you can get a gun anytime you want, the problem is what to do with it once you have it. All these armchair Rambos are full of shit.

Youre right u have to know what youre doing with one thats for sure but theres a whole lot of us with military backgrounds and a lot of us know what we are doing with them.u gun control nuts need to go live there and maybe u would see exactly what severe gun restriction gets you

Of course they can! But the law only allows .22 rifle or a .30 six shot... You think that shit can go toe to toe with a ak47 or a ar15?? If u do then ur a complete idiot. They need the good stuff, the stuff that packs a punch just incase the drug cartel operative or their vehicle have armor.

@ 6:52. You are stupid to think that would happen in the US. We can buy guns and ammo here and the goverment forces would take care of that. You're talking about a third world country you fucking dumbass. There are government militia's that can't even do that here in the states. Taking a house is one thing but a town never. Everyone here has firearms.

Totally sick story! It is unbelievable that there are abandoned pueblos in the moutains because of organized crime-and KOT say they are good. What is more unbelievable is that It is real and completely believable because it is Mexico. Poor people. Sick, sick, sick!

@9:42 well said, they don't seem to count with the fact that the ordinary Mexican just like the ordinary American is not a murderer and has a family and the guys they are facing wouldn't even blink while they behead your children

Well, I learned Mexico is in a whole lot worse shape than I ever thought and I already knew it didn't function like any country I ever lived.I've lived in four including this one. Thank you for taking time to inform us of the sick nuances of Mexico. Read Borderland Beat and you will learn about the Mexican drug war. You won't like what you learn because it is like reading Dantes Inferno. Mexico is modern hell. Go to Narexico and you go to hell.

to " Everyone here has firearms. March 13, 2013 at 9:49 PM "quick to use insults speaks volumes about you. with personality like yours lets see how many stand by your side.the dems have already legalized drugs in three states with more drug users putting pressure in other states.while you are fighting i figure most of your neighbors will be puffing a bong.

Mexico's problems has nothing to do with guns, the real problem is CORRUPTION! Embedded in govt and society, corrupt officials are the root of this problem. Greed, envy, and the lust for power is easily achieved when corruption is prevalent.

How easy is it to sit here and write about someone else's problem... but the truth is that most people if not all, will simply go back to watching TV or go to the next website and not really think of what they have just read. I remember growing up in Zacatecas, in places like the ones mentioned above and unlike most people posting their meaningless opinion, I do sit here and wonder if there is help for the people being affected by this so called "narco war". The least affected is the narcos. They simple multiply because they provide what the government does not; protection, money, cuernos de chivo, a nice car, you get the point... what would you rather do, ride around in a nice truck or pick tomatoes all day in the sun? To a person with choices it's a stupid question, but to a person with no future like my cousin Pedro, the choice was the nice truck. Now you can see him in the 2012 LTZ Tahoe riding around with his new gold chain and two young females on his side. This is why we can't fight the narcos and why the people that try to do it end up dead or withwithout a home. Even if the government could help these people when the narcos showed up, these places are so isolated the it takes hours to get there. For the people thet live in small villages like mine in Zacatecas, once the norcos show up, THERE IS NO HOPE!!!

I would pick tomatoes rather than knowing i would most likely die within a couple of months.they need drones to take those convoys out.it would be hard for a young person to make that choice but thats where family and values have to kick in

I used to say legalize drugs in the USA to deny the cartels and save Mexico. Now I see the cartels will just continue by extortion and kidnapping for ransom. Mexico is rotten at the top, it is that simple.The original culprit is white trash Americans and ghetto blacks needing their high. Sorry Mexico.

Americans are not the only people in the world getting high.i dont use the shit personally but if you think all americans are getting high youre dead wrong.narcos have a market around the world.mexico needs to clean up their own backyard before they complain about the neighbors

Prohibition has caused great damage to Mexico. alcohol prohibition never got this bad well they dint allow it. it was named the great experiment. but drug prohibition has been in the works cookin up integrating itself into our reality for 40 years. the lawless that has been created in Mexico paves the way for kidnappers and crooks. stop fighting drug merchants and focus on real criminals. easy money in the land were they are not giving any other options. you cant really blame these youths, you older people before us that has allowed this to continue should feel really ashamed if you have any left

The Acapulco area is so utterly screwed up and now look at this fiasco in the pueblitos. Mass evacuations because of Knights . Knights retreated in Mich. not liking citizens with guns. They were wining to the government yesterday about armed citizens. Maybe some of these armed vigilantes groups in the Acapulco vicinity can help chase them out of these areas too! And we will hear even more bellyaching from those cowards. I hate these dildo Knights.

I read or heard somewhere that Mex. is covered with valuable mineral resources. That is probably true since México is covered with mountains were minerals might be located. That might be one of the reasons why the cartels and some government forces are waging a campaign of voilence and terror. The minerals are something that a multinational corp. might want to control on the cheap, without paying mineral rights the way its done for landowners in the U.S. For example, coltan and cobalt were obtained on the cheap from DR Congo for the benefit of cell phone co.'s. These minerals are utilized for the Productions of cell phones. The Rwandan conflict of 1994 unleashed voilence that led to the Congo War 1998-2003; 25 armed groups and goverments were involved in the conflict. Blood minerals If you ask me. México's citizens are being dislodged from their homes and lands for a number of reasons,.this might be one of them.

March 13, 2013 at 6:50 PM"and yes i am verey racist against most whites leas im honest i dont trust yall hall yall stupid ass honkeys be leavin hate comments about people in mexico"?Where,,you fuckin liying little scrub?Fuck off to BDN racist motherfucker,you sad little prick,talkin hard core about stabbin people?You sad little midget"yes im very racist against whitepeople"you say that as if its something to be proud of you fuckin crank.How many white-people do you know by the way?The only racist comments on here is you,you fuckin loser,fuck off to BDN fuckin hunchback,stinky racist.Fuck you cowards who let it go all the time,thats why we keep having to put up with it .

March 14, 2013 at 8:51 AM "The original culprit is white trash Americans and ghetto blacks needing their high. Sorry Mexico"Is that right Waldo?Bleeding heart liberal prick,are you responsible for your own behavior?What a fuckin idiotic statement,we could actually turn that on its head and say Mexico flooded the US with drugs so readily that it made a huge market?How about that one?Or,maybe because a market is on the doorstep?Say your sorry for Custer,Vietnam,Hiroshima,Korea,and anything else you can think of you fuckin limp wrist skeeze.I most humbly apologize for my crude and unsightly rhetorical speech,,,,nah i don't.

Oh fuckin ell,now we got my race got screwed worse than yours.I used to eat the soles of shoes with salt on because i was so poor,and people picked on me for having two heads.So i had it worse than all of you.